Governor Newsom Proves He’s Clueless About Crime

California Governor Gavin Newsom was caught on a Zoom forum Wednesday demonstrating that he has no idea how the crime policies he has supported have increased crime, particularly retail theft, across the state. David Propper of the New York Post reports that on the forum the Governor recounted that when he was preparing to check out during a recent visit to a Sacramento Target store, a man walked right out the door with stolen merchandise. Newsom asked the clerk “why didn’t you stop him.” The female clerk responded “She goes, ‘oh, the governor.’ Swear to God, true story on my mom’s grave. ‘The governor lowered the threshold, there’s no accountability.’ I said that’s just not true.” He told her that California’s Proposition 47 made the penalty for thefts of $950 or higher “the 10th toughest in the nation.” The Governor then told the clerk he wanted to see her manager.

The fact is, Newsom supported Proposition 47 which transformed thefts valued at less than $950 from felonies to misdemeanors.  Under that law a thief can steal $900 worth of goods from six different stores in one day, but because each theft was less than $950, the most he can be charged with a misdemeanor. The punishment for a misdemeanor, if the thief is caught, is akin to a traffic ticket. With shootings, stabbings, robberies and assaults spiking across the state, most big city police departments do not have the resources to respond to shoplifting calls and, as a result, many are not even reported. It appears the Governor did not know this.

He also gets the grand theft part wrong. A person who steals $90,000 worth of jewelry from a store in California cannot be sent to prison. Because of AB 109, Jerry Brown’s 2011 “Public Safety Realignment” law, which Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom supported, the toughest sentence the jewelry thief can receive is time in one of the state’s overcrowded county jails. Over the past several years, few of the those convicted of grand theft have served a full jail term because as new criminals are convicted, the one’s already there get early release. The same goes for car thieves and commercial burglars.

One interesting takeaway from the Zoom meeting was that Newsom seemed even more peeved about not being recognized by the clerk than about her no accountability statement. Apparently to Governor Brylcreem, that’s a serious crime.